I looked strong outside; but was hurting within – Lady who turned lawyer after 11-year struggle

A lady who struggled for about eleven years to become a lawyer has revealed that even though she seemed composed during the period, she was experiencing internal emotional upsets.

Adelaide Abena Frimpomaa Baah-Frimpong, popularly known as Edialeda Jones said in her quest to actualise her legal dreams, she went through many difficulties which were not obvious to onlookers.

Giving more details in an interview with Paa Kwesi Schandorf on JoyNews Prime on Sunday, Edialeda, who is now a barrister and solicitor at the Supreme Court said her path to becoming a lawyer was obstructed by many difficulties which she had to overcome.

“Naturally, I’m the kind of person who cannot really lament before people. I turn to be so strong on the outside and mostly in the inside that I wail. Most of the time, I worked myself”, she said.

In her narration, Edialeda said she first set her sail to read law in 2015, when she wrote the entrance exams.

But according to her, she failed the exams, compelling her to consider options outside of Ghana.

“To experience my first failure, it broke my spirit. And that’s why I decided I was no longer going to pursue law in Ghana [and that] I’m just going to do my LLM in the US.

“I applied to a school in the US and I got admission. I got all the supporting documents and decided that I’m going to go for an interview, a visa interview. [In] the first attempt, they denied me. I don’t know why they denied me”, she said.

Following the failed attempt to travel, Edialeda said she was forced to write the law entrance exams again.

This was in addition to a second pursuit for visa to travel to the US.

Unfortunately, her application for a visa was also declined a day to her second law entrance exams. This she explained was not easy to handle.

In recounting her ordeal, Edialeda said there was a time when she even suspected that her newly born baby was the cause of her predicaments and marital issues.

“I’ve faced depression countless times in my life. Especially after child birth, I faced postpartum depression. I was mostly alone.

“I was at home alone with my child and the failure of the first bar exams was two weeks after I delivered through CS. And so all kinds of thoughts were running through my mind”, she added.

But finally, after years of struggle, she finally achieved her dreams. In her submissions, she stressed on the need for people to persevere in their pursuits.

Touching on the challenges she encountered, she added her voice to calls for reforms to make legal education more convenient.

In an earlier Facebook post on Sunday, Edialeda shared details of her legal journey, which caught the attention of many.

She wrote:

“It is the story of how I started pursuing academic excellence and a career in Law. For 11 years, it felt like a dream that would never come to pass. It has been 6years of countless adrenaline rush and fear at the thought of a pending examination results.

I started studying Law in 2011 and finished my first degree in 2015. I failed my first attempt at the entrance exam to law school. I decided to go do my LLM in US. I applied and got all supporting documents.

I went for the visa interview and got denied. 6 months later I tried again and still got denied visa. A day after the denial, I wrote the entrance exam again and got admission in 2016.

I wrote my first Bar exam in 2017 and failed 4 papers which meant all the 6 I passed were wasted and I needed to repeat the course.

I had now delivered my daughter through C.S and faced postpartum depression alone and secretly, so I deferred the course in 2018. I was going through a painful separation but decided to try again.

A week to the Bar exam, I received a petition for divorce which broke me all over again. I knew I had to defer again to 2020 because I knew another failure would ruin me forever. I went back to law school again in 2020. I was bitter, sad and hurt but I still went anyway.

I wrote my first 6 papers and failed 2. In 2021 I sat the 2 failed papers with the 4 I had to write that year. I failed 2 again out of the 6 papers. This year, March 2022, I resat the 2 papers I failed. I passed and found my name in the enrollment list.
June 24, 2022 became the day I was called to the Bar. Until I was handed my certificate, I was still waiting and expecting probably to see my name no longer on the list.

Today is 25th and it still feels like a dream. I reached the point where I thought it was probably not meant for me but still knew until I am breathless, I couldn’t stop pursuing.

I just want to inspire you reading today. If you think you’ve struggled too much, just hold on and don’t give up. Delay is not denial. I will take any opporrunity I ever get, on radio or Tv or any form of media to inspire others, especially women like me who have to pull themselves through the teeth each day.

This is only a short summary. I hope one day soon the book will come out”.

Source: Ghana News